By analysing meteorites, Imperial researchers have uncovered the likely far-flung origin of Earth’s volatile chemicals, some of which form the building blocks of life.
George Crabtree, director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research at Argonne and a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is fondly remembered for his impactful leadership that elevated energy research.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm honored 44 teams with the Secretary of Energy Achievement Award and five individuals for their work. Among the recipients are Distinguished Professor Esther Takeuchi, a battery researcher with a joint appointment at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University; Douglas Paquette, a hydrogeologist in Brookhaven Lab's Environmental Protection Division; and Robert Gordon, manager of the DOE-Brookhaven Site Office that oversees operations at Brookhaven Lab.
KIMM has announced the development of the design and process technology for the world's first battery electrode that significantly improves the performance and stability of batteries used in electronic devices such as smartphones, laptops, and electric vehicles.
Story tips: Shuffling the load, a reveille for more biomass, designer molecules may help valuable minerals float, ‘T’ molecules huddle around rare earth elements
As lithium-ion batteries have become a ubiquitous part of our lives through their use in consumer electronics, automobiles and electricity storage facilities, researchers have been working to improve their power, efficiency and longevity. As detailed in a paper published today in Nature Materials, scientists at the University of California, Irvine and Brookhaven National Laboratory conducted a detailed examination of high-nickel-content layered cathodes, considered to be components of promise in next-generation batteries.
Graduate student intern Meg Slattery is working with researchers in Berkeley Lab’s Lithium Resource Research and Innovation Center to develop a new research blueprint – inspired by energy justice – as they explore the Salton Sea’s potential as a renewable source of lithium for battery production.
Every year, the United States spends nearly a trillion dollars fighting metallic corrosion, an electrochemical reaction that occurs when metals oxidize and begin to rust.
The flexible copper sensor is made from ordinary materials: conductive copper adhesive tape, sheet of transparency film, paper label, nail varnish, circuit fabrication solution, and acetone.
A research team has improved the solar energy absorption of titanium oxo clusters. Their work demonstrates an effective strategy for regulating the light absorption behaviors of these clusters by importing electron-rich heterometals.
Investigating the interplay between the structure of water molecules that have been incorporated into layered materials such as clays and the configuration of ions in such materials has long proved a great experimental challenge.
One of the world's most important artificial materials is back in vogue because scientists are harnessing its properties for new and diverse future applications such as space navigation and farming.
Scientists have found a variety of ways to convert one color of laser light into another. In a study just published in the journal Physical Review Applied, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory demonstrate a new color-shifting strategy that’s simple, efficient, and highly customizable.
A collaboration led by scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the Max Born Institute (MBI) published a study in Nature in which they used a novel analysis technique—called coherent correlation imaging (CCI)—to image the evolution of magnetic domains in time and space without any previous knowledge. The scientists could not see the “dance of the domains” during the measurement but only afterward, when they used the recorded data to “rewind the tape.”
Researchers have been looking to replace silicon in electronics with materials that provide a higher performance and lower power consumption while also having scalability. An international team is addressing that need by developing a promising process to develop high-quality 2D materials that could power next-generation electronics.
Researchers at Tufts University have created a biopolymer sensor that can be printed on or embedded in wide range of materials, including gloves, masks, and everyday clothing. The sensor lights up when exposed to specific pathogens, toxins, proteins, or chemicals.
UPTON, NY—Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have successfully demonstrated that autonomous methods can discover new materials. The artificial intelligence (AI)-driven technique led to the discovery of three new nanostructures, including a first-of-its-kind nanoscale “ladder.
When a spacecraft enters a thick atmosphere at a high velocity, it rapidly compresses the gas in front of it, creating a hot, dense plasma. To protect against damage, spacecraft are typically covered by a heat shield material. Scientists for the first time used a tokamak to study what happens to these materials in a hot plasma. The research creates a path to improving heat shield materials for future planetary exploration.
The glittering, serpentine structures that power wearable electronics can be created with the same technology used to print rock concert t-shirts, new research shows.
The word “exotic” may not spark thoughts of uranium, but Tyler Spano’s investigations of exotic phases of uranium are bringing new knowledge to the nuclear nonproliferation industry. Spano, a nuclear security scientist at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and her colleagues examined four previously understudied phases of uranium oxide: beta (β-), delta (δ-), epsilon UO3 (ε-UO3) and beta U3O8 (β-U3O8).
The 2022 Materials Day event, presented by the Materials Research Institute with the theme “Materials Impacting Society,” featured a look at what might be on the horizon as far as materials research with positive societal impact.
Two researchers proposed in a study in Applied Materials Today that a super-lubricity switch may be found in humidity, enabling it to be turned on and off depending if friction is or isn't needed.
A durable copper-based coating developed by Dartmouth College researchers can be precisely integrated into fabric to create responsive and reusable materials such as protective equipment, environmental sensors, and smart filters, according to a recent study.
A team led by University of Minnesota Twin Cities researchers has invented a groundbreaking new catalyst technology that converts renewable materials like trees and corn to the key chemicals, acrylic acid, and acrylates used in paints, coatings, and superabsorbent polymers.
Scientists are working to transform carbon dioxide into chemical solar fuels. To advance this process, researchers have identified a new hybrid material that consists of a light-absorbing semiconductor and a cobalt catalyst. The research extends scientific efforts to identify new ways to store energy and to efforts to understand how light-absorbing hybrid systems can drive the catalytic production of chemical fuels using solar energy.
Cornell is leading a new $34 million research center that will accelerate the creation of energy-efficient semiconductor materials and technologies, and develop revolutionary new approaches for microelectronics systems.
Irvine, Calif., Jan. 4, 2023 – A new visualization technology that captures spectral images of materials in the mid-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum has been developed by scientists at the University of California, Irvine. The discovery, which was recently featured on the cover of the journal Science Advances, promises to help researchers and industries across many fields, including medical and tech, quickly visualize the chemical composition of various materials or tissues.
As semiconductor devices become ever smaller, researchers are exploring two-dimensional materials for potential applications in transistors and optoelectronics. Controlling the flow of electricity and heat through these materials is key to their functionality, but first we need to understand the details of those behaviors at atomic scales. Now, researchers have discovered that electrons play a surprising role in how energy is transferred between layers of 2D semiconductor materials tungsten diselenide and tungsten disulfide.
Perovskite solar cells degrade when exposed to sunlight, which results in decreasing performance over time. A new research project will examine how such solar cells could recover and self-repair at night.
A University of Minnesota Twin Cities-led team has developed a new method for making nano-membranes of “smart” materials, which will allow scientists to harness their unique properties for use in devices such as sensors and flexible electronics.
Emerging forms of thin-film device technologies that rely on alternative semiconductor materials, such as printable organics, nanocarbon allotropes and metal oxides, could contribute to a more economically and environmentally sustainable internet of things (IoT), a KAUST-led international team suggests.
Carnegie Mellon University’s Yongxin (Leon) Zhao and the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Shih-Chi Chen have a big idea for manufacturing nanodevices.
Inspired by electromagnetic metamaterials, the research team designed and fabricated a water wave superscattering device based on degeneracy resonance by using the similarity of water wave equation and electromagnetic wave equation under shallow water conditions, which was realized it experimentally.
Argonne researchers put their stamp on 2022 with accomplishments as varied as quantum science, wearable medical sensors, and climate change resilience and recovery.
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new graphene-based nanoelectronics platform that could be the key to finding a successor to silicon. The team may have also discovered a new quasiparticle. Their discovery could lead to manufacturing smaller, faster, more efficient, and more sustainable computer chips, and has potential implications for quantum and high-performance computing.
Argonne scientists report they can precisely rotate a single molecule on demand. The key ingredient is a single atom of europium, a rare earth element. It rests at the center of a complex of other atoms and gives the molecule many practical applications.
The way that silkworms wind their cocoons is now helping scientists more easily make new biomedical materials. Researchers in ACS’ Nano Letters have mimicked the seemingly simple head bobbing of silkworms to create more consistent micro- and nanofibers with less equipment than other approaches.
Researchers have developed a new method for discovering and making new crystalline materials with two or more elements. Such materials would be applicable to developing next-generation superconductors, microelectronics, batteries, magnets and more.
After extensive analyses, Empa researchers found the cause of the concrete scandal in County Donegal, Ireland, where structural damage has been causing red faces and protests for years: Concrete walls of thousands of houses are riddled with cracks, necessitating expensive repairs or even demolition.
In new research published in Nature Communications, University of Sussex scientists demonstrate how a highly conductive paint coating that they have developed mimics the network spread of a virus through a process called 'explosive percolation' – a mathematical process which can also be applied to population growth, financial systems and computer networks, but which has not been seen before in materials systems.